Looking up into the sky, she gazed at the memories that floated along, visions of the past. The white clouds were sweet memories while the dark clouds were bad memories. Whenever it rained or stormed, it meant that somewhere out there, a dark memory was being recorded. Technically, it meant that something bad was happening. She recalled something to that effect happening to her. It was almost like a hurricane had hit the city that day. The wind had howled and the sky had looked as black as hell, an empty void, a dark abyss that ran endlessly into nothingness. She had never felt frightened before in her life but at that moment she had been terrified.

 

             She was just heading back from practice when she was attacked, bound up and then held for ransom. The final game was coming up and she was going to prove to her parents, over all their unfinished arguments, her disobedience and her constant rebelling against them, that she was strong enough to stand on her own. Yet, when faced with real danger, she had frozen up in fear. She had tried to fight back, but after switching out the style her mother had burned into her body for something with a faster kick, she found that she was at a disadvantage in power. She had wasted her years of training in the martial art just to show off on the arena where speed was a necessity. She had whined and complained, just like the sound of the wind whistling in her ear. Ah, how annoying it was, high pitched and deafening. It was painful. She could hardly imagine how much more painful it had been for her mother to have to listen to it. In confinement, she had cried, regretted her actions and begun praying and begging for forgiveness. The only company she had in that dark cell were the loud booms of thunder and the flashes of lightning, equally matching her pained anxiety. If one thought the cage was dark, nothing compared to the typhoon that rumbled outside. She could recall the soft patter of the rain that splashed through the small metal barred opening. The sky, at that very moment, matched the darkness in her heart and revealed to her the anger she had harboured for her mother and father.

 

 

             Her mother, Chief of Police, and her father had come to save her, in the raging storm. Running her hand lightly against her right cheek, she lightly traced the scar she received that night with her fingers. It was, as her mother put, her true mark of bravery. It hardly compared to the bruises and gashes that her mother had attained over the years but it was still something. The stormed had quelled just then, the clouds sifted away and became calm, dismissing the dark abyss. As she was now, she could look back on those memories and no dark clouds would appear because although they had been painful memories, they had become sweet somehow. Looking up at the fluffy white clouds that puffed about lazily in the sky, the sun shining down gently on her face, she smiled. Her mother had professed that she was proud of her, time and time again as she grew up. Only now did she realize why it was so. Her mother was proud of her for simply just existing and that was it, how simple it was. Much like the sky was proud of the clouds for simply just existing, she herself could say she was proud to be where she was now and for simply just existing.